


the bonfire of the vanities

by postcardmystery



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Self-Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck Bass knows three things with utter, bone-deep certainty by the time he is twelve years old. Money is the ultimate possession. Power is always knowing what everybody is saying. There is no such thing is love.</p><p>When Chuck Bass is seventeen, he unlearns them all in one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the bonfire of the vanities

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for self-harm and a suicide attempt.

i.  
  
Chuck Bass knows three things with utter, bone-deep certainty by the time he is twelve years old. Money is the ultimate possession. Power is always knowing what everybody is saying. There is no such thing is love.  
  
When Chuck Bass is seventeen, he unlearns them all in one night.

 

  
  
ii.  
  
With Bart Bass, everything is a front. Business is war; and wars are won with propaganda, not with men. You bury them in information, true or false, until they give up and go home. He does it all the time. Bart Bass does not know how to love. Chuck sometimes wonders if this is a lie he tells himself to help him sleep at night. But when the whisky kicks in he'll sleep no matter what he tells himself, and if Bart Bass once knew how to love, he's forgotten. The torn and bloody hole at the very centre of Chuck Bass is more than ample proof of that.

 

  
  
iii.  
  
 _A prince of shreds and patches_ , the papers call him. He cannot bring himself to disagree.

 

 

  
iv.  
  
Rich people are not insane. They are troubled, or eccentric. Serena is troubled. ( _Trouble_.) Blair, perhaps, was troubled. Dan Humphrey slides a little more into eccentric every day. Chuck is neither eccentric nor troubled. Chuck is holding onto the edge with his littlest finger and praying for the wind to change.

 

 

  
v.  
  
Money cannot buy you everything. This, Bart Bass did not believe. Chuck watches Blair smile, entirely wicked, at Carter Baizen, and he begins to unlearn once more.

 

  
  
vi.  
  
 _The dark prince_ , the papers call him, and by his side aches a place where a queen should be. Louis would make her a princess. Louis is too short-sighted by far.

 

  
  
vii.  
  
Blair is twenty-six and she does not love him any more. So she says. So she says, tears on her face in a Manhattan hospital. He should have known better than a razor; so proletarian. Her ring finger is bare, and he is not forgiven. He might never be forgiven. He only wants to earn her forgiveness if she wants him to try, and she wipes her eyes and gives him all the answer he needs.

 

  
  
viii.  
  
The company doesn't go bust, by a wide margin. Chuck hasn't been CEO in three years, and he leaves New York Presbyterian with Blair by his side. (Not on his arm. He-- he can't.) She kisses him in the back of the limo and pulls his head into her lap. He lies there, and breathes. Vanilla. Chanel. Home.

 

  
  
ix.  
  
He takes the bandages off on a cold May morning, sitting on his bed, Blair still sleeping beside him. He does the press conference with his sleeves rolled up, and smirks the whole time. Fuck them. He's Chuck Bass, and of all the things Chuck Bass has done,  _this_  is not the one he's going to be ashamed of. They take their pictures, the lines still red and angry, and he does a lazy salute as he leaves. That's the photo that ends up on the front of the Times, of course. Chuck lets Blair ride him, the newspaper forgotten on the floor, and it feels like he's losing his mind all over again. His smirk is in every street in New York City, and Blair is shaking against his chest. He isn't losing his mind. He's just relearning power.

 

  
  
x.  
  
"Let's get married," says Blair, in June. It is not a question. It is almost a command, but not quite. As usual.  
  
"Obviously, Waldorf," says Chuck, but his eyes give him away, anyway.


End file.
